Friday, February 8, 2013

Thursday, February 7, 2013

here we have a little christmas gift i worked up for my girlfriend's family who grows lavender on their property. they also own a dachshund. so that explains the dog part.

im trying to work on my handwritten lettering and font repertoire. so in cases like this, im looking for opportunities to incorporate new font stylings and still unite them with the rest of my work. enjoy!

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Monday, February 4, 2013

i recently picked up MOBY DICK to re-read because i just couldnt give a darn when it was required reading in high school. and by "re-read," i mean listen to the audiobook in the car on my way to work. (i have an hour long commute.. you would read books that way too.)

anyways, its language is descriptive and kind of poetic and i like that. it's giving me a lot of cool, crusty characters to imagine. here are just a couple for now.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

im finally posting again, this time a figure drawing done yesterday and then overworked by adding more and more colors and detail until i felt the whole thing was completely overdone. the artsy people call that 'beating a dead horse'. the model posed for a long time, so i ended up doing several drawings. two are represented on this one image by using an overlay layer in photoshop. hope u like!

Thursday, September 13, 2012

a friend of mine hired me to design a tattoo for her, and im happy she did because this one was very fun to draw. ive designed several tattoos in my day and i think this may be one of my favorites to date.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

so this little thing is a concept of a main character for a comic ive been working on. maybe i need to make an online comic. it would save loads of publishing costs. if i have enough interest, i shall print it.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

here we have a choice moment between odysseus and polyphemus, the cyclops. odysseus and his crew has been held captive in the cyclops' cave, and is plotting his escape by getting polyphemus drunk so that they can spear his eye and make their get-away.

i was working on some cyclops designs and was drawn to the idea that the cyclops at one point did in fact have 2 eyes. he must have lost it in a battle or had a nasty accident and eventually the storytelling over the years has simplified it to a giant with one eye.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Saturday, August 25, 2012

im starting a new edition on this here blog. i have loads of sketchbooks FULL of junk drawings that have never seen the light of day. so ill try to post some art taken crudely with my phone on the days i just dont have time to generate new stuff. ill try my best to keep my instagram filters to a minimum. no promises.

--these are all drawn with prisma colors and brush pens no bigger than 5 X 7 --

you can follow me on instagram if you are really that bored. justaword to the wise: i only post artwork occasionally. the rest of the pictures are of my cat.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

its easy to confuse a harpy with a siren. in greek mythology, they are the creepy bird-ladies who snatch poor phineus' food every time he tries to quell his hunger (see black and white still from one of my favorite movies, jason and the argonauts). sirens however, have also been seen and described as bird-bodied women. oddly, in greek mythology sirens werent bird ladies at all-- this version of the sirens was based off a roman confusion with the harpy creature. originally, sirens were just devious femme fatale types who

enticed sailors with their beautiful voices.

aside from historical inaccuracies, ive always loved the way jw waterhouse painted the odysseus and the sirens (see color oil painting above). even as a young kid, i thought that painting was so eerie and so frightening.

both the harpies in jason and the argonauts and the sirens in jw waterhouse's painting were big inspirations for how i chose to draw harpies. because they are food-snatchers, i wanted them to look like vultures. there isnt really anything homogeneous about slapping a woman's head on a bird body, but in a way it just works. probably cuz weve seen it so many times before. in any case, enjoy.

Monday, August 20, 2012

particularly, the gorgon sister medusa. there is something very tragic about her. it is said that she was once a beautiful maiden who was transformed into a monster by the god athena as punishment for gettin' down and dirty with poseidon. i havent seen a medusa who was vulnerable; that behind all the serpentine locks of hair, large staring eyes, the tusks of swine, lolling tongue and flared nostrils, she was just a prisoner of her own sin and ugliness. in the end you could see her remorse. i wish that aspect of her character was portrayed more.

so thats why i included some visual development of her character, paying attention to ways to make her appear sad and aquatic and hideous, as well as a detail of the color study i recently did. i have tons more ideas exploring the same genre that i hope to post soooon... i hope. please enjoy and let me know what you think!

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

so to be honest i did not do this drawing recently. at all, actually. this was scavenged from an old sketchbook the other day by my friend George. we decided to trade drawings and this was the poor drawing that will end up on his wall somewhere. he agreed to take it as long as i painted the red to vignette the characters. good call george.

oh, btw the character is a villain that ive made iteration after iteration upon. she was a witch designed for a comic i had in mind. too many cobwebs on the project to continue now. im much to busy sitting in my dark apartment staring at my wall.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

this here is a couple characters ive been developing for a comic that ive been (ever so slowly) working on. you can expect the book-release party to happen roughly around november 2047. who knows. maybe sooner but probably not.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Monday, August 22, 2011

so why is this post called england you ask? well, the song "England" by the National has lyrics that speak to me. the song gives me feelings of sorrow but also gratefulness too. one of those songs that kinda borough into your heart. anyways, the song reminds me of a friend i used to know (lyrics below).

ALSO! this post is a sneak peak into a sketchbook/scrapbook project im planning to publish before the end of the year. its taken me a long time to warm up to the idea of publishing. my work is very personal and there are confidence issues and stuff with my work and im insecure about my subject matter, and all that makes me uncomfortable. but the art i am doing is coming from a real place in my soul so i feel responsible to be honest towards it. so im gonna make a book and publish it anyways.

sometimes art inspires music, sometimes music inspires art. this is a case of the latter. i think maybe the lyrics pulled the sorrow and eccentricity out of me. here is the result:

(abbreviated) lyrics by The National:

Someone send a runner through the weather that I'm under

for the feeling that I lost today
Summer sent a runner for the feeling that I lost today

Put an ocean and a river between everybody else
Between everything, yourself, and home

You must be somewhere in London, you must be loving your life in the rain
You must be somewhere in London, walking Abbey Lane

Famous angels never come through England
England gets the ones you never need
I'm in a Los Angeles cathedral
Minor singing airheads sing for me

Put an ocean and a river between everybody else
Between everything, yourself, and home

Monday, July 25, 2011

Friday, July 1, 2011

ive not posted for quite some time because i have felt a bit stifled, creatively. i needed something to break me free from my usual mediums. after stocking up on brush pens and moleskins in japantown, i decided to force myself to work in ink. ive always admired works in pen..there's a raw finality to each image. raw, but so permanent, which is the very reason ive avoided it! i havent drawn directly with pen until now.